"Damn you, Stryker!"
Wolverine's roar tore through the room like something ripped straight out of a wounded animal. He looked less like a man and more like a cornered beast that had finally smelled the blood of the hunter who ruined his life, his silver claws flashing wildly through the air as he slashed at nothing and everything, as if William Stryker might materialize in front of him at any second.
The air itself seemed to tense around him. Rogue, Iceman, and the others stood frozen in the doorway, watching with alarm and uncertainty, all of them feeling the same thing at once.
Locke hadn't just told Wolverine the truth.
He had ripped the chain off something ferocious and let it loose.
"I'm going to kill that bastard," Wolverine snarled, his voice raw with grief and rage. "I want him dead!"
"Logan, calm down!"
Locke's voice cracked across the room like a whip. He stood where he was, expression stern, his tone carrying enough force to cut through the spiral Logan was falling into.
"When Kayla was dying, do you think she wanted you to become a killing machine?" he said. "Don't betray the woman who loved you."
That sentence hit harder than everything that came before it.
Wolverine's body shook once, and the madness in his eyes faltered. Long-buried fragments rose up from the dark corners of his mind like ghosts dragged into the light—Kayla's face, her warmth, her voice, and the pain of losing her all over again.
In the next second, all the strength seemed to leave him.
His claws retracted slowly with a metallic hiss, and he dropped to the ground like a man whose bones had suddenly turned to sand. He sat there in silence, shoulders heavy, head lowered, all the violence draining out of him and leaving only exhaustion behind.
Locke let out a quiet breath. Then he waved the others away and shut the door, giving Wolverine the only thing he could really use at a moment like this—space.
Right now, nobody here could truly comfort him. Not Rogue, not Bobby, not any of the younger students staring from the hall with frightened eyes.
Only Jean might have been able to help, and she was gone.
Locke turned to the group crowding the entrance. "Go get some sleep," he said. "Stryker's coming soon. If you stay awake panicking now, you won't have any strength left when it's time to run."
That got their attention.
Rogue edged closer anyway, lowering her voice as if Wolverine might somehow hear her through the weight of his grief. "Hey… is Logan gonna be okay? You really shouldn't have told him everything all at once."
Locke waved a hand dismissively. "Relax. Logan's not the type to break for good. Worst case, when Jean gets back, she can give him a little mental tune-up and the invincible Wolverine will be right back at full health."
Rogue rolled her eyes so hard it was almost impressive. The look on her face said exactly what she was thinking: if Jean actually heard him say that, Cyclops would probably throw him through a wall.
Night deepened over the mansion.
Most of the students eventually returned to their rooms, though not many of them truly slept. Wolverine stayed alone with his pain, while Locke settled into a far more relaxed pose in front of the television, flipping through late-night garbage with the air of a man waiting for the next act of a play he already knew by heart.
Then his phone vibrated.
He opened it and found an image waiting on the screen—aerial reconnaissance, crisp and clear. It showed the secret prison where Magneto was being held, a triangular structure planted on a small island like a blade driven into the sea.
Locke stared at it for a second, thoughts sharpening.
Judging from the timeline, Professor Xavier had probably already been compromised. Stryker's trap inside the prison should have sprung by now. Charles had gone exactly where he was supposed to go, and Locke hadn't made the slightest effort to stop it.
That was intentional.
He had never planned to reveal the next stage of events to anyone. More importantly, he had no intention of changing them. What he wanted from this mess went far beyond adamantium, beyond winning the favor of a few X-Men, beyond a cleaner relationship with the mutant side of the board.
Mutants were monsters in the best and worst sense of the word.
If every mutant on Earth ever truly united, the rest of the superhero world combined might not be enough to stop them. In this universe, two figures sat at the top of that mountain—Magneto and Professor Xavier.
Magneto's threat didn't need explaining.
As for Xavier, the old man had Cerebro, a machine so absurdly dangerous that in the wrong hands it could become a weapon against all of humanity. A mutant genocide device disguised as a tool of guidance.
One man ruled through fear.
The other ruled through gentleness.
Together, they defined the mutant race.
Magneto had to die.
Cerebro had to go too.
As for Xavier… Locke wasn't vulnerable to his telepathy, which meant the professor was not an immediate threat to him personally. That made the decision more flexible. If Charles could be controlled, then he might still have use. If not, Locke had no problem sending him off to reunite with old friends in the afterlife.
He was still weighing the possibilities when a soft rustling sound drifted in from outside.
Subtle.
Disciplined.
Military.
Locke's mouth curved faintly.
Stryker was here.
Showtime.
In another part of the building, Wolverine was still drowning in old pain when instinct hit him like a blade sliding between the ribs. His head snapped up. Every nerve in his body lit with warning.
Danger.
He moved to the window and caught a glimpse of motion outside—a dark figure cutting across the grounds.
Then a sharp scream rang out through the school, high and terrified, and the entire mansion erupted into chaos.
By the time Wolverine reached the corridor, Locke was already there, looking at him with unusual seriousness.
"Enemy incoming," Locke said. "Go protect the kids."
That was all Logan needed.
The building dissolved into noise and confusion as frightened students poured into the halls. Wolverine moved through them fast, gathering every child he could find and pushing them toward the entrance of the hidden passage. He had no idea how many attackers there were, no idea whether he could actually stop them, but the secret tunnel was the best fallback point they had.
It was defensible.
It was hidden.
And if things went bad, it led out.
Elsewhere in the mansion, Locke moved at an entirely different pace—unhurried, almost casual. But the moment he ran into the invading soldiers, that calm became lethal.
He raised a hand.
Lightning flashed.
Blinding arcs tore through the corridors, and most of the attacking force died before they fully understood what they had encountered. Men screamed, rifles clattered to the floor, and the smell of scorched flesh filled the air in seconds.
The slaughter was efficient enough that it drew Stryker's attention almost immediately.
Listening to the panicked reports coming through his headset, Stryker surveyed the situation, then let his eyes settle on the true leverage still available to him.
The children.
Inside the passage entrance, Wolverine was ushering people through one by one. When he turned, he saw Locke approaching and frowned.
"Why?" he asked, surprised and irritated. "Even you can't stop them?"
Locke shook his head. "It's not that I can't stop them. It's that the enemy's playing dirty."
A second later, Wolverine understood exactly what he meant.
The surviving soldiers had taken hostages.
Locke and Wolverine now stood facing more than a dozen armed men, each one using a child as a shield. Guns were raised, fingers tense on triggers, and behind them, walking forward with measured confidence, came a middle-aged man with graying hair, glasses, and the faintly plump build of someone who preferred command to combat.
William Stryker.
He wore a mild smile that sat on his face like a lie. His gaze went first to Locke, and his expression brightened with genuine surprise.
"Mr. Locke," he said warmly, as if greeting a guest at a fundraiser. "I never expected to find you here. I watched your interview this morning."
Locke's face didn't change. "And I never expected American soldiers to attack a school full of children."
Stryker chuckled. "This is not an ordinary school."
Then he tilted his head slightly. "So tell me, Mr. Locke—have you decided to stand with mutants?"
Locke answered without hesitation. "I'm not standing with mutants. I'm standing with my conscience."
That earned a laugh and even a few appreciative claps from Stryker, as if he were amused by a preacher refusing to compromise on live television.
"So you really are the righteous priest they saw this morning," Stryker said. "That does make things inconvenient."
Then his attention shifted.
To Wolverine.
There was surprise there, but also something close to nostalgia, the kind an old scientist might feel when finding a favorite specimen still alive.
"Logan," he said, almost cheerfully. "Long time no see. Look at me—I'm old now, but you're still in your prime."
From the moment Stryker appeared, Wolverine had been trapped in a storm of half-recovered memory. Hearing his name in that man's voice was enough to rip everything open at once.
"Stryker!"
With a metallic ring, his claws snapped out again, and he lunged forward—
Only to be stopped by a wall of rapidly spreading ice that burst up between them. The frozen barrier shot outward in an instant, cutting off his charge and sealing the line of sight.
Behind them, Rogue and Iceman shouted together.
"Go!"
Wolverine turned instinctively toward the secret passage, but he hesitated when he glanced back at Locke. Leaving him behind clearly didn't sit right.
Locke grabbed his arm and pulled.
"Move," he said. "You'll get another chance to settle the score."
Logan clenched his jaw, rage burning in his eyes, but finally turned and ran toward the passage with the others.
Locke followed them in retreat, but not before slipping a small disc from his pocket—a compact device pulsing with blue light. As he passed a cracked section of wall, he casually shoved it into the gap.
Anton and his son had been making progress.
This was their newest prototype super bomb.
It was nowhere near the level of a true nuclear weapon, but for bringing down a building?
More than enough.
At the far exit of the secret passage, the children clustered together in fear. They looked miserable and half-awake, clothes in disarray, some trembling, others quietly crying because they were old enough to understand that tonight was not a drill.
"Where are we going?" a little girl asked, voice shaking.
Wolverine opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. For all his strength, for all his fury, he had no good words for children being driven from their home in the middle of the night.
Locke stepped forward.
"To New Jersey," he said. "I've got a base there. It's big enough to hold all of you."
That answer was clear enough to keep them moving.
Once the group had gotten far enough away, Locke quietly pressed the detonator in his hand.
A second later, the ground trembled.
Then came the explosion.
Everyone turned at once.
Behind them, a huge fireball rose into the night where the school had stood, swallowing part of the grounds in orange light. The shockwave rolled outward with a deep, savage roar, and every face in the fleeing group changed.
Iceman stared, stunned, then burst out, "What the hell? It wasn't enough for those bastards to attack us—they blew up the school too? That's completely insane! How are we supposed to come back after this?"
A faint smile touched Locke's mouth.
Come back?
After moving into my place, you still think you're returning?
Dream on.
If they settled into his base, if they got used to his protection, if they started depending on him for food, shelter, and security, then the so-called Xavier students would slowly become his people.
Development games were all the same.
Raise the herd.
Use the herd.
On the other side of the blast, Stryker and several captured mutant children had only just made it outside when the shockwave hit them and sent them flying. He slammed into the ground hard, blood running down his face as he dragged himself back up and turned to look at the collapsed ruin behind him.
"Fuck!"
His expression twisted with fury and disbelief.
"These mutants are completely insane," he spat. "They'll destroy their own home without hesitation. There really aren't many normal people in this entire damn group."
But even then, he didn't give up.
He grabbed a nearby squad captain by the front of his uniform and pointed toward the wreckage.
"What I need is underground," he snapped. "That explosion won't have destroyed it. Start digging."
"Yes, sir!"
....
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